Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 270 posts

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#121

Post by cm2187 »

belorn wrote: post #112
cm2187 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vetted by who? Based on the political opinions of some manager somewhere in California?

The only democratic way to have a vetting system for political messages would be to have an transparent government institute that are responsible to the public, and it seems to me then that we have just reinvented the censor bureau of the past.

And which will be run by a political appointee. I don’t think either party will be thrilled to have the other vetting political speech.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#122

Post by lettergram »

belorn wrote: post #112
cm2187 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vetted by who? Based on the political opinions of some manager somewhere in California?

The only democratic way to have a vetting system for political messages would be to have an transparent government institute that are responsible to the public, and it seems to me then that we have just reinvented the censor bureau of the past.

Ugh we have a constitution to protect against stuff like this...

Otherwise we’d have the ministry of truth which would be arresting people for inappropriate thoughts being expressed.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#123

Post by bob33212 »

dgellow wrote: post #92
KiranRao0 wrote: post #27

I would love if Facebook could simply remove all political ads. The problem then becomes what classifies as political ad. This can be very obvious (vote for president = political, buy cereal = not political), but it can also be far less obvious. For example, would an ad for in support of an oil pipeline be considered a political ad? What if it's in support for an outcome of a referendum? Or an Ad for a charity? What…

The thing is: it doesn't have to be perfect. If you already remove the ones that are obviously political ads, you already reduce the noise by a lot.

Some people's entire Facebook feed is political. Facebook knows that if you remove the political aspect from Facebook all those people will jump to Twitter or Reddit or whatever to get their daily 5 hours of politics.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#125

Post by enkid »

torben-friis wrote: post #36
ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

You make an interesting point: what would a social network of limited range look like? Something where you couldn't have more than a set number of connections, things didn't spread more than two nodes in the graph, and resharing wasn't an option. I think it would be ideal to fill in the mainstream need for facebook ( keeping in touch with people)

Make it less like to show something if the further the connection is from the individual. By default don't show every like or retweet, only do it if you are relatively close to the original source? Dampen the viralness if the post by having diminishing returns for each "like?" I don't have an answer, but I feel like these are things that could be explored.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#126

Post by Nursie »

lettergram wrote: post #119
ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

> Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. Define a credible source? We know for a fact all the major news outlets edit photos, often don’t use their own reporters, write sensational articles (actively stretching facts). No, I don’t think we can say what is a “sketchy” source. Unless we start wanting Facebook to moderate truth (or just accept the…

> We know for a fact all the major news outlets edit photos, often don’t use their own reporters, write sensational articles (actively stretching facts).

We can't, perhaps, for a definition that captures all sketchy sources, but we can come up with a reasonable definition that encapsulates some of them.

> I think it’s short sighted to try and suppress.

Why? Suppressing the mass, unencumbered spread of vexatious lies as "news" would seem to be beneficial to all.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#128

Post by charliebrownau »

lettergram wrote: post #122
belorn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only democratic way to have a vetting system for political messages would be to have an transparent government institute that are responsible to the public, and it seems to me then that we have just reinvented the censor bureau of the past.

Ugh we have a constitution to protect against stuff like this... Otherwise we’d have the ministry of truth which would be arresting people for inappropriate thoughts being expressed.

Howd that work with GUN Ownership

Both Left and RIGHT is anti Gun

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#129

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

pjc50 wrote: post #81
ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

This reminds me of the California/Australia wildfires. They're the result of a whole cascade of problems, from global warming to the details of under-supported local firefighting infrastructure, but those at the top aren't interested in any of those until they start to feel the heat approach them. I think the possibility of election "chaos" is starting to look real; you've already had this year "armed protestors occu…

I think the risk of protracted conflict is actually really high. Trump has repeatedly implied that he would not accept the results of the election, and has laid groundwork to say that the election was rigged and illegitimate. Hillary Clinton has publicly stated that in no way should Biden concede the election, and Harris last night in the debates implied that they would fight if needed.

All this during an extremely severe economic crash leaving millions of people unemployed, with each side blaming the other for the downturn. There have already been violent protests for months. When Trump's "poll watchers" end up in conflicts, I think that's when we'll see things escalate quickly.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and everyone else seems to be doing their best to control the narrative in an attempt to prevent this escalation, but it really seems like it's too late. There seems to be institutional momentum behind these forces at this point.

Re: Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

#130

Post by castratikron »

What if they made all social media read-only for a day or two preceding the election? Analogous to radio silence. Then it would be impossible for anyone to post misinformation about where to vote or other things that are designed to change the result of an election.
Post reply on HN